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FalconStor Data Mastery PlatformCloud Integration Guide

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Contents

3 OverviewArchitectural overview

Cloud use cases

Amazon Web Services

Microsoft Azure

7 FDMP and AWSSupported configurations

Configuration overview

Create an FSS VM

Add your new FSS to FMS

Configure storage

Assign storage to the FSS for virtualization

Replicate data from the local FSS to the FSSVA in the AWS cloud

Recovery scenarios

Modify boot parameters for Linux machines protected with DiskSafe

21 FDMP and Microsoft AzureDeploy an FSS from the Azure Marketplace

Add your new FSS to FMS

Assign storage to the FSS for virtualization

Replicate data from the local FSS to the FSSVA in the Azure cloud

Recovery scenarios

Boot a Linux disk image


FalconStor Data Mastery PlatformCloud Integration Guide

OverviewThe cloud is a relatively new frontier for data management. Why is there so much buzz about

moving data management to the cloud? The cloud can offer many benefits, including:

● Cost Savings: The cost savings are substantial. Because cloud services typically offer a

“pay-as-you-go” model, they are a bargain when compared to the capital costs and over-

head of maintaining traditional IT infrastructures. In some instances, cloud providers

offer a more cost-efficient storage platform in terms of dollars per gigabyte (GB).

● Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR): The cloud is ideal for a disaster

recovery (DR) solution. Using cloud-service providers for DR can significantly speed up

your recovery process so that your organization has minimal disruption to business

operations in the event of an outage.

● Agility: Working in the cloud allows organizations to access data from anywhere. Having

access to data from everywhere allows companies to be more agile. An agile business

can be more responsive to business opportunities, can be more customer-centric, and

can recover quickly from a disaster.

● Data tiering: The cloud can be used as an additional data tier for cold and seldom-used

data. As the volume of data grows exponentially in every data center, the need for a tier-

ing solution at different cost points provides flexibility in achieving desired total cost of

ownership (TCO) targets.

● Flexibility: Although consuming anything as a service can eventually cost more over

time, the savings related to capital and people often enable organizations to deploy and

move with more flexibility to achieve faster time to revenue. This benefit typically out-

weighs the longer-term cost factors.


ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEWThe following components can be deployed in a FalconStor Data Mastery Platform (FDMP)

with cloud configuration:

● A FalconStor Storage Server (FSS) that provides storage-virtualization and business-con-

tinuity services for continuous availability of your data in a virtual or physical environ-

ment. The FSS can be a physical appliance or a virtual appliance. Data replication can be

configured from one FSS to another. An FSS virtual appliance (FSSVA) can be deployed as

a replica server in a public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.

● The FalconStor Management Server (FMS) is a standalone machine that gathers and

consolidates the information coming from your different storage servers into a scalable

repository of services, users, and historical data. The FMS includes a web service that

allows you to connect to each FSS for management and monitoring purposes.

FSS can provision storage to clients in the data path (in-band) or outside the data path

(out-of-band), and it can protect the data.

● An in-band configuration positions an FSS in the data path between a client and its stor-

age. The storage server provisions resources to the client and allows data protection and

recovery services.

● An out-of-band configuration positions an FSS outside the direct data path between a

client and its storage. FalconStor DiskSafe is installed on the client machine running Linux

or Windows applications in order to protect its resources. DiskSafe captures block-level

changes made to a protected system disk or data disk on the application server and writes

changed data blocks to a “mirror” device managed by the back-end FSS. All data-protection

operations – snapshot processing, journaling, and mirroring – are managed on the FSS.

Data can be mirrored continuously or at regularly scheduled intervals.

Refer to the DiskSafe User Guide for details about configuring a protection policy for sys-

tem or data disks.

During the configuration, you will be asked to identify involved servers and clients. If all ma-

chines are in the same virtual private network (VPN) and virtual private cloud (VPC), you can

use internal IP addresses within that network. Otherwise, you must use public IP addresses.

CLOUD USE CASESFalconStor Data Mastery Platform provides several efficient ways to restore the data of a

protected resource. You can restore either to the original resource or to another resource for

migration or duplication.

You also have granular recovery options; you can recover data at a file or folder level, at a

device level, or at the whole system level.

Disaster recoveryYou can use the cloud as your secondary copy of data for the ultimate in low-cost protection

and site recovery.

Using the FSS data-replication feature, data is synchronized from the primary to the replica

to ensure consistency. Under normal circumstances, clients do not have access to the repli-

ca storage, but when a disaster occurs and data on the replica is needed, the replica can be

promoted and become an independent device that can be assigned to clients.

If you use FalconStor DiskSafe to protect your client machine, you will also be able to recover

the whole machine.


Some client-recovery scenarios are described further in the “Recovery scenarios” section, below.

FSS

Clients

Primary

LocalStorage

FSS

CloudStorage

Replica

Local-site-to-cloud migrationYou can migrate your storage and workspaces to the cloud in order to eliminate data center

equipment expenses, maintenance requirements, and support time. The migration proce-

dure is similar to the DR process in that the FSS data-replication feature will be used. Once

replica devices are promoted and client machine images are restored on new client virtual

machines (VMs) in the cloud, you can retire your local site.

Some client-recovery scenarios are described further in the “Recovery scenarios” section, below.

FSS

CloudStorage

Replica

FSS

Clients

Primary

LocalStorage

Cloud-to-cloud migrationUsing the FSS data-replication feature, you can protect your data in the cloud by replicating

to other cloud sites or vendors for maximum security of your data and insurance against

cloud pricing changes.

FSSFSS

Clients

Primary

CloudStorage

Replica

CloudStorage

Tape-to-cloud migrationUsing the FalconStor Virtual Tape Library (VTL) tape-to-object feature, you can export tapes

to the cloud and stop physically moving tapes offsite for storage. The IT industry has

been increasingly adopting object storage as one of the storage tiers. Virtual tapes can be

migrated when they are ejected by backup software. After migration, disk space used by


virtual tapes will be freed and virtual tapes will be converted to stub tapes. In this way, you

can use the cloud for archiving purposes.

Refer to the FalconStor VTL User Guide for more details.

TapeArchive

VTL Server

Clients

Primary

VirtualTapes

AMAZON WEB SERVICESAmazon Web Services (AWS) is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution; it is a virtually

limitless data center.

AWS uses Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) for block-level storage volumes for use with

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances in the AWS cloud. For object storage, AWS

uses Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).

There are several possible configurations for FDMP and AWS:

● Amazon EC2 – Uses an FSSVA that is deployed in the AWS public cloud to provide virtual-

ization and DR. This configuration supports:

● Amazon S3 storage – Provides object storage via an AWS Storage Gateway. This is

typically a less expensive solution.

● Amazon EBS – Provides block storage.

● AWS Storage Gateway – Uses an on-premise AWS Storage Gateway to provide object stor-

age to an FSS.

MICROSOFT AZUREMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Microsoft for

building, deploying, and managing applications and services.

Azure uses object storage, also called Azure Blob storage, to store unstructured data in the

cloud as objects/blobs. Blob storage can store any type of text or binary data, such as a

document, media file, or application installer.

By replicating snapshots from an on-premise FSS to an FSS virtual appliance in the

Microsoft Azure cloud, FalconStor offers a simple DR solution.


FDMP and AWSSUPPORTED CONFIGURATIONSFalconStor Data Mastery Platform has three supported configurations for AWS:

● Cloud-based FSSVA and Amazon EBS

● Cloud-based FSSVA with AWS Storage Gateway and Amazon S3 object storage

● On-premise AWS Storage Gateway with cloud-based Amazon S3 object storage

Cloud-based FSSVA and Amazon EBSIn the diagram below, the FSS is replicating snapshots to the FSSVA in the AWS cloud with

Amazon EBS.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

FSS(Physical or Virtual)

Your Data Center

FalconStor Management Server(physical or virual)

iSCSI or FC Shared Storage

Snapshot Replication

Management Connection

FSSVA

EBS

Cloud-based FSSVA with AWS Storage Gateway and Amazon S3 object storageIn the diagram below, the FSS is replicating snapshots to the FSSVA in the AWS cloud with

an AWS Storage Gateway and Amazon S3 object storage.



Your Data Center





FSSVA

S3ASG


On-premise AWS Storage Gateway with cloud-based Amazon S3 object storageIn the diagram below, the FSS utilizes an on-premise AWS Storage Gateway for object stor-

age. In this configuration, AWS provides snapshot/DR capabilities. The FSS can be physical

or virtual.



Your Data Center


iSCSI Shared Storage


ASG

ESX

S3

CONFIGURATION OVERVIEWThis section explains how to deploy FSSVA in Amazon EC2. It involves the following steps:

1. Create an FSS VM.

2. Add your new FSS to FMS.

3. Configure storage.

4. Assign storage to the FSS for virtualization.

5. Replicate data from the local FSS to the FSSVA in the AWS cloud.

CREATE AN FSS VM1. Log into AWS.

2. Launch a new Amazon EC2 instance.

a. Select All Services / Compute / EC2.


b. Select Instances / Launch Instance.

c. Select AWS Marketplace, search for FalconStor to view all offerings, and then select the FalconStor Storage Server.

d. Choose an Instance Type that is appropriate for your environment, and then click Review and Launch.


e. Create storage volumes.

A Root volume (70 GB) has been created; to create additional storage volumes for data, click Add New Volume. Block devices related to the new volumes will be automatically configured for FalconStor servers during the first reboot of the server.

If you add storage volumes later, you will need to manually run check_blk to configure block devices for FalconStor servers without the need to restart services.

For example, here the volume /dev/xvdf was created during installation, and the device

/dev/sda is configured for FSS during installation:

f. Click Edit security groups.

g. Create a security group or select an existing group. The rules for a security group control

the inbound traffic that is allowed to reach the instances associated with the security

group and the outbound traffic that is allowed to leave them.


Create the group using the following steps. If you select an existing group, it must have

the same rules as the one described below:

i. Click Inbound, and then click Add Rule.

ii. Add rules as shown in the following screenshot.

iii. Click Outbound, confirm it shows the same as the following screenshot, and

then click Create.


h. Click Launch when the summary is displayed.

3. Choose your key pair.

If you do not have any predefined key pairs, you must create one. Be sure to download the

key and keep it in a safe place as you will not be able to download it again in the future.

After this is completed, click the check box to acknowledge that you have downloaded

the key, and then click Launch Instances.

The VM will begin to initialize and you will be redirected to the generic screen.

4. Click View Instances to view the newly deployed instance.

The EC2 instance dashboard will show the new instance with a status of Initializing.


5. When the instance no longer has a status of Initializing, use Secure Shell (SSH) to con-

nect to the instance using either the DNS or IP address.

You must SSH with authentication using the following syntax:

ssh -i “<KEY PAIR FILE>” cloud-user@<IP ADDRESS or DNS NAME>For example: ssh -i “KeyFile.pem” [email protected]

6. Prepare the server configuration by executing sudo into the privileged account:

# sudo su –

You will see screens similar to the following when you connect for the first time as root:

The server will reboot after changing the password. Confirm that your IP address has not

changed from your Amazon EC2 console, wait until the server becomes ready, and then

connect again using the cloud user account.

7. Once the instance is online again, add it to the FMS portal and continue with deployment.

The Amazon AWS command-line interface (CLI) is also installed on the FSSVA. Refer to the

following link for details: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/installing.html


ADD YOUR NEW FSS TO FMS1. Connect to your FMS server and log in as superadmin.

2. Select Administration from the menu bar and then select Servers.

3. Click the “+” icon.

4. Use the public IP address as the server IP address and specify the root password.

5. Click Add.

CONFIGURE STORAGEThis section describes how to configure storage in the following configurations:

● Cloud-based FSSVA and Amazon EBS

● Cloud-based FSSVA with AWS Storage Gateway and Amazon S3 object storage

● On-premise storage gateway with cloud-based Amazon S3 object storage

Cloud-based FSSVA and Amazon EBS1. Log into Amazon AWS / Services / Compute / Amazon EC2 / Amazon Elastic Block Store / Volume.

2. Create a volume and make sure it is in the same Availability Zone as the FSSVA instance

3. Select and attach the volume to FSSVA by selecting Volume / Actions / Attach Volume

4. Once the volumes are attached, check /var/log/messages on the FSSVA appliance to

verify that the volume label xvdf appears.

5. Run check_blk to configure block devices for FalconStor servers.

6. Confirm that the blockscsi disk has been added to the FSSVA as shown in the example below.

# cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Cloud-based FSSVA with AWS Storage Gateway and Amazon S3 object storageRefer to the following Amazon link for additional installation details: http://docs.aws.ama-

zon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/launch-activate-ec2-ami-common.html

1. Log into AWS / Services / Compute / Amazon EC2 / Launch Instance / AWS Marketplace, search

for AWS Storage Gateway, and then click Select.


2. Choose an Instance Type that is appropriate for your environment and click Next: Configure

Instance.

3. Leave the default setting, click Next: Add Storage, and then add one disk for Upload Buffer

and one disk for Cache Storage. Refer to the following Amazon link for disk-sizing detail:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/volume-gateways-archi-

tecture.html

4. Click Review and Launch / Launch, select your setting for a key pair, and then click Launch

Instances.

5. Once the AWS Storage Gateway appliance appears in the Amazon EC2 console, locate the

public IP address.

6. Activate the AWS Storage Gateway appliance by clicking Services / Storage & Content

Delivery / Storage Gateway / Deploy a new Gateway on Amazon EC2 / Gateway-Cache Volume. Type

the public IP address in the Enter IP Address field, and then proceed to activation. Follow

the steps to complete the activation.

7. Configure the upload buffer and cache storage in the AWS Storage Gateway appliance by

expanding Volume Gateways, clicking on your new gateway appliance, clicking the Gateway

tab in the right panel window, clicking Configure Local Storage, and then selecting 20GB for

the upload buffer and 25GB for cache storage. Do not configure the 10GB disk that comes

with the gateway appliance as it is used as a swap disk.

8. Create a new Amazon S3 volume via the newly deployed AWS Storage Gateway for the

FSSVA appliance to use.

9. Use SSH to connect to the FSSVA appliance and connect to your new volume on the AWS

Storage Gateway appliance via the iscsiadm2 interactive menu.

# iscsiadm2

● Select (1) Discover a target.

● Enter the private IP address of the AWS Storage Gateway appliance.

● Press Enter to log into the iSCSI target.

● Press Enter again to return to the main menu.

● Select (9) to log into all targets, and then press Enter.

● Press Enter to exit the iscsiadm2 interactive menu.

10. Confirm that the Amazon S3 iSCSI disks were found and added into /proc/scsi/scsi as

shown below.


On-premise AWS Storage Gateway with cloud-based Amazon S3 object storageThe following procedure is for a gateway-cached volume, which retains a copy of frequently

accessed data locally. Refer to AWS for information about configuring gateway-stored volumes.

1. Download the gateway-cached volumes by logging into Amazon AWS / Services / Storage &

Content Delivery / Storage Gateway / Deploy a new Gateway / Gateway-Cached volumes / Continue

/ Continue, and then choosing the correct virtualization platform to run the AWS Storage

Gateway and saving the .ova image.

2. Deploy the AWS Storage Gateway .ova image on your local VMware environment and be

sure to select the Thick provisioned format storage option. Also, in VM setting / Options /

VMware Tools, check the box Synchronize guest time with host.


3. Allocate sufficient storage for the gateway. Change the SCSI controller type of the VM to

Paravirtual. Refer to the following Amazon link for detailed instructions: http://docs.aws.

amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/GettingStartedPLDSMain-vm-common.

html

4. Power on the gateway appliance and locate the IP address. If the gateway appliance is

unable to obtain an IP address via DHCP, log into the gateway appliance with the user

“sguser” and the default password “sgpassword” to set the network configuration.

5. Enter the IP address for the local gateway appliance and proceed to activate it.

6. Configure the local storage to Use for Cache Storage and Use for Upload Buffer.

7. Click on your gateway appliance and create an Amazon S3 volume.

8. Configure your local FSSVA to connect to the newly created Amazon S3 volume.

● Use SSH to connect to your local FSSVA.

● Launch the iscsiadm interactive utility.

# iscsiadm2

● Select option 1 to enter the target IP address of the AWS Storage Gateway, and then

press Enter.

● Select option 9 to log in to all targets, and then press Enter again to exit.

● Confirm that the Amazon S3 volume shows up.


ASSIGN STORAGE TO THE FSS FOR VIRTUALIZATIONThis section explains how to assign storage from AWS to the FSSVA and virtualize it using FMS.

1. Connect to your FMS and log in as superadmin.

2. Select Manage from the menu bar, select your server, click the Physical Resources tab, and

then click the Physical Devices tab. If a device does not show up in the list, click the Rescan

button to rescan the physical resources.

3. Highlight the physical device in the list, and then click the Edit Physical Device icon to set

its properties to Virtual. You can then start creating resources on it as if it was any phys-

ical storage device. Refer to the FalconStor Data Mastery Platform User Guide for more detail

about this and to configure clients to access the virtual devices on the FSS appliance.


REPLICATE DATA FROM THE LOCAL FSS TO THE FSSVA IN THE AWS CLOUDReplication can be based upon a defined schedule or watermark, or it can be set to occur

continuously. For performance purposes and added protection, data can be compressed or

encrypted during replication. FalconStor MicroScan can be used to reduce the amount of

data being replicated by only transmitting changed blocks.

Refer to the FalconStor Data Mastery Platform User Guide for details about creating a replication

policy for your virtual devices.

During the replication configuration, you will be asked to identify the replica server. If all

machines are in the same VPN and VPC, you can use internal IP addresses within that

network. Otherwise, you must use public IP addresses in order to connect. Also, if the FSS at

your local site is behind a firewall or a NAT router, it also needs a public-facing address in

order for replication to succeed.

If you have different virtualized network interface controllers (vNICs) and virtual local area

networks (VLANs), and the source and replica servers use isolated networks to connect to

FMS, where there is no connectivity between those networks, you will need to specify the

source and replica IP addresses for the replication handshake.

FMS builds higher than 3200 and FSS patch update-is955703 provide the option for spe-

cific IP addresses to use for handshakes between source and replica servers.


RECOVERY SCENARIOSThis section provides some recovery scenarios for a client machine.

Recover a VM protected with DiskSafe in cloudIn this scenario, you have a VM in a cloud. The machine image is protected by FalconStor

DiskSafe and FSSVA. If the VM fails, you can follow the steps below to recover the VM image

on another VM in the cloud:

1. Create a new VM instance with the same operating system and the same or a similar

amount of CPU and memory as the VM that you are planning to recover. Be sure to choose

the same boot disk size.

2. Power off the VM instance. Detach the VM boot disk and attach it to FSSVA, which will

detect the boot disk as a block device.

3. On FSSVA, run the following command to see the major and minor number of the newly

attached block disk device:

# cat /proc/partitions

4. Convert the block device to an SCSI device by running the FalconStor add_blkscsi util-

ity and select option 3 to convert the block device to a FalconStor blockscsi device:

# add_blkscsi

5. Run the following command to allow the blockscsi device to be used as a Service-Enabled

Device (SED) for layout preservation. This command requires FSS patch update-is955702:

# echo forcesedallowed > /tmp/.falconstor

6. Change the category of the blockscsi device to an SED from the FDMP Portal or via the CLI.

7. From the FDMP Portal, create a copy of the TimeMark that corresponds to the DiskSafe

snapshot image of the boot disk to recover: Manage / select a virtual device / select a

TimeMark / click the TimeMark icon / select Copy TimeMark. While the copy process is oc-

curring in the background, a new TimeMark copy virtual device appears.

8. Mirror the TimeMark copy virtual device to the SED device representing the boot disk:

Manage / select the newly created TimeMark virtual device copy / click the Mirror icon /

select Create Virtual Device Mirror / select the SED category / click Create.

9. Once the data mirroring is complete and the boot disk contains the snapshot image,

perform the following steps for cleanup:

● Delete the mirror.

● Change the SED device category to unassigned.

● Run the FalconStor add_blkscsi utility and select option 4 to remove the blockscsi device.

● Perform a rescan so that the SED device shows as offline, and then delete the offline entry.

10. From AWS, detach the disk from the FSSVA, and then reattach it back to the original

instance. Make sure the device is attached as /dev/sda1, not the default device ID.

12. Boot up the instance.

13. If you still want to protect the new VM with DiskSafe, check and redefine the protection

policies using new IP addresses, disk IDs, and the storage server.

Recover a machine protected with DiskSafe to the cloud with AWS EC2In this scenario, you have a physical or virtual machine in your local site that is protect-

ed by FalconStor DiskSafe and FSS. If the machine fails, you can follow the steps below to

recover the local machine image on a VM in the cloud. In the following example, the steps

are performed from the local FSS and local mirror device. If replication is enabled and the

replica disk is available on an FSSVA in Amazon EC2, you can execute the same steps from

the replica FSSVA, using the replica device ID:


1. Run the following command to expose the virtual device that is the mirror image of the

machine protected by DiskSafe. This example uses virtual device ID 12 and makes it

available for backup for two hours using the existing TimeMark:

# iscli enablebackup -s 127.0.0.1 -v 12 -l 2H -n use-existing

2. Use the following command in the background to make a raw copy of the virtual device

to a file for upload to Amazon S3. Make sure there is enough free local disk space, which

should be at least twice the size of the raw boot disk size.

# nohup dd if=/dev/isdev/kisdev<deviceID> of=<BootImageName.raw> bs=65536 &

For example:

# nohup dd if=/dev/isdev/kisdev12 of=myimage.raw bs=65536 &

3. For Linux machines, modify the boot parameters. Refer to the Modify boot parameters for

Linux DiskSafe protected machines section of this document (on the next page) for more

information.

4. Once the raw copy is complete, log into your AWS region account via the following

command:

# aws configure

5. Run the following AWS CLI command to copy the image file to the Amazon S3 bucket:

# aws s3 cp myimage.raw s3://falconstorimages/

6. Create a containers.json file with the information below. Be sure to set the Amazon S3 key

name to the name used in the previous step:

[{ "Description": "Boot Image", "Format": "raw", "UserBucket": { "S3Bucket": "falconstorimages", "S3Key": "myimage.raw" }}]

7. Run the following AWS CLI command to import the image:

# aws ec2 import-image --description "Boot Image" --disk-container file://containers.json

8. Run the following AWS CLI command to check the status of the import in the queue. If it

has completed, this image will appear in your Amazon Machine Image (AMI) account:

# aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks

9. Launch a VM from this image.

10. If you still want to protect the new VM with DiskSafe, check and redefine protection poli-

cies using new IP addresses, disk IDs, and the storage server.

MODIFY BOOT PARAMETERS FOR LINUX MACHINES PROTECTED WITH DISKSAFE1. Run the following commands to mount the raw Linux boot image file on a loop device

for access:

# losetup /dev/loop0 myimage.raw# kpartx -a /dev/loop0# mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mnt


2. Change the default boot menu to the one before the DiskSafe image was installed.

# vi /mnt/grub/grub.conf (Linux 6)or

# vi /boot/grub2/grub.cfg (Linux 7)

3. Unmount the boot image.

# umount /mnt

4. The root partition becomes the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) partition after DiskSafe is

installed. Run the following LVM commands to mount the partition:

# vgscan Reading volume groups from cache. Found volume group "vg_rh6u5" using metadata type lvm2# vgchange -ay vg_rh6u5 2 logical volume(s) in volume group "vg_rh6u5" now active# mount /dev/vg_rh6u5/lv_root /mnt# vi /mnt/etc/fstab

Remove references to disksafe/ in fstab.# vi /mnt/etc/lvm/lvm.conf

Remove references to disksafe/ in the filter section of lvm.conf: “filter=[“a|^/dev/disksafe/sda.*$|”,”r|.*|”]”# umount /mnt# vgchange -an vg_rh6u5 0 logical volume(s) in volume group "vg_rh6u5" now active# kpartx -d /dev/loop0# losetup -d /dev/loop0# vgscan Reading volume groups from cache.


FDMP and Microsoft AzureThe diagram below illustrates a simple DR solution using FSS with the Microsoft Azure

cloud. In this case, the FSS is replicating snapshots to the FSSVA in the Microsoft Azure

cloud using page blob storage (block storage).

MicrosoftAzure


Your Data Center





FSSVA

Page Blob

DEPLOY AN FSS FROM THE AZURE MARKETPLACENote: You must have a Microsoft Azure account and knowledge about administrating

Microsoft Azure resources to complete these steps.

1. Log in to portal.azure.com.

2. Select Virtual Machines from the left pane.

3. Click Add to access the Azure Marketplace offerings.

4. Type FalconStor in the search bar, and then click the FalconStor Storage Server icon from

the results.

5. Click Create.

6. When prompted, provide a username and password for login, along with the Azure re-

sources that are to be allocated for the new VM being created.


On the final step, prior to the VM being deployed, Microsoft provides an estimate of how

much it will cost per hour to run the VM with the previously selected resources. FalconStor

is not collecting a fee during this process, but a license is required to manage the system.

For additional information about this, contact [email protected].

After clicking Purchase on the final screen of the wizard, you will be returned to the dash-

board and an icon will be displayed to show that the new VM is being deployed:

Once the VM has been successfully deployed, you will be redirected to the newly deployed VM.


7. Enable the root account (it is disabled by Azure), and run ipstor setup to populate ipstor.

conf. To do this, use SSH to connect to the dynamically assigned public IP address provid-

ed by Azure.

Note: You must use the credentials supplied during step 6 (VM creation wizard) to log in.

8. After logging in, perform the following actions:

a. Use “Su” to become a super user.

[testuser@testserver ~]$ sudo su –

b. Create a password for the root account:

[root@testserver ~]# passwd root

Changing password for user root.

New password:

Retype new password:

passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

c. Stop FSS services.

[root@testserver ~]# ipstor stop

FalconStor IPStor Server version 9.00 (Build 9048)

All virtual devices are going to be detached.


We recommend stopping all IPStor client services prior to shutdown.

Otherwise, data loss may occur.

Are you sure you want to continue? (y/n) [n]: y

d. Delete the following default directory:

[root@testserver ~]# rm -fr $ISHOME/etc/$HOSTNAME

e. Rename the following existing directory:

[root@testserver ~]# mv $ISHOME/etc/localhost $ISHOME/etc/$HOSTNAME

f. Create the base configuration:

[root@testserver ~]# ipstor setup


Starting IPStor Block Device Module [ OK ]

FalconStor IPStor Server v9.00 - (Build 9048) Setup

Supported SCSI device(s) found: 2


Stopping IPStor Block Device Module [ OK ]

g. Start FSS services:

[root@testserver ~]# ipstor start

9. Install the Azure CLI for Linux on the VM.

10. Add your newly deployed FSS to FMS and manage as needed. Refer to the following sec-

tion of this document for more information.

ADD YOUR NEW FSS TO FMS1. Connect to your FMS server and log in as superadmin.

2. Select Administration from the menu bar, and then select Servers.

3. Click the “+” icon.

4. Use the public IP address provided to the VM from Azure as the server IP address and

specify the root password.

5. Click Add.

ASSIGN STORAGE TO THE FSS FOR VIRTUALIZATIONThis section explains how to assign page blob storage (block storage) from the Azure cloud

to the FSSVA and how to virtualize it using the FMS portal.

1. From Azure Resource Manager, click on your VM, click Disks, and then click Attach New.

2. Use the default settings. The size of this device can be up to 1023GB (1TB). If you need

a smaller device, change the size. If you need a larger device, you can allocate multiple

disks and FSS will virtualize them into one larger device.

3. Connect to your FMS server and log in as superadmin.


4. Select Manage from the menu bar, select your server, click the Physical Resources tab,

and then click the Physical Devices tab. If a device does not show up in the list, click the

Rescan button to rescan the physical resources.

5. Highlight the physical device in the list, and then click the Edit Physical Device icon to set

its properties to Virtual. You can then start creating resources on it as if it was any phys-

ical storage device. Refer to the FalconStor Data Mastery Platform User Guide for more

details about this and to configure clients to access the virtual devices provided by FSS.

REPLICATE DATA FROM THE LOCAL FSS TO THE FSSVA IN THE AZURE CLOUDFSS can provision storage to clients in the data path (in-band) or outside the data path

(out-of-band), and it can protect the data.

An in-band configuration positions an FSS in the data path between a client and its stor-

age. The storage server provisions resources to the client and allows data-protection and

recovery services. In an in-band configuration, data replication can be configured from one

FSS to another.

An out-of-band configuration positions an FSS outside the direct data path between a

client and its storage. FalconStor DiskSafe is installed on the client machine running Linux

or Windows applications in order to protect its resources. DiskSafe captures block-level

changes made to a protected system disk or data disk on the application server and writes

changed data blocks to a “mirror” device managed by the back-end FSS. All data protection

operations – snapshot processing, journaling, and mirroring – are managed on the FSS.

Data can be mirrored continuously or at regularly scheduled intervals.

Refer to the FalconStor Data Mastery Platform User Guide for details about creating a replica-

tion policy for your virtual devices. During the configuration, you will be asked to identify

the replica (target) server. You must use the public IP address provided by Azure in order to

connect. Also, if the FSS at your local site is behind a firewall, it also needs a public-facing

address in order for replication to succeed.

Refer to the DiskSafe User Guide for details about configuring a protection policy for system

or data disks.


RECOVERY SCENARIOSThis section provides some recovery scenarios for a VM.

Recover a Windows VM protected with DiskSafe from a local VMware configura-tion to the Azure cloudOn the target FSS, prepare the DiskSafe boot image for the DiskSafe client that you want to

recover to Azure.

Prerequisite: Install the Azure CLI on the target FSSVA. You must also have the Azure

PowerShell and Azure CLI installed on a Window Server environment that supports Windows

PowerShell commands.

1. Identify the VID of the DiskSafe operating system mirror disk and enable raw disk backup

on this VID.

# iscli enablebackup –s 127.0.0.1 –v <vid_ds_resource> -n use-exist-ing -r <RawBootDiskName> -l 2H

For example:

# iscli enablebackup -s 127.0.0.1 -v 2 -n use-existing –r BootDisk1 -l 2H

2. Use the dd command to dump the mirror disk into a file. Make sure there is enough free

local disk space, which should be at least twice the size of the raw boot disk size.

# nohup dd if=/dev/isdev/kisdev<RawBootDiskName> of=<RawBootDisk-Name.raw> bs=65536 &

For example:

# nohup dd if=/dev/isdev/BookDisk1 of=BootDisk1.raw bs=65536 &

3. Disable the backupenabler once dd has completed.

# iscli disablebackup -s 127.0.0.1 -v <vid_ds_resource>

4. If the DiskSafe boot image you are attempting to recover to Azure is a Linux VM, complete

the steps in the Boot a Linux disk image section of this paper. If the image is Windows

VM, skip this step and continue with step 5.

5. Use the third-party qemu-img utility to convert the raw disk into a vhd format.

# nohup qemu-img convert -f raw -o subformat=fixed < RawBootDiskName.raw> -O vpc

<RawBootDiskName.vhd> &

6. From your FSSVA, log into your Azure account and select your subscription.

# azure login

# azure account set <Azure-sub-2-Name>

7. Upload the converted vhd file into your Azure storage account with nohup, and then run it

in the background.

# nohup azure storage blob upload <local file to upload> <destination container name> <destination blob file name> -a <accountName2> -k <accountKey2> &

8. Once the upload is completed, log into your Azure account and select your subscription

ID via a Windows PowerShell command.

# login-azurermaccoun

# select-azurermsubscriptionID “subscription ID xxxxxxx”


9. Run the following commands from your Windows Server environment with PowerShell

installed to create and launch the VM.

$pipName = "<Give a public IP name for the DS protected VM that you are recovering>"

$rgName = "<Enter your Resource Group Name>"

$vnetName = "<Enter your virtual Network Name>"

$location = "<Enter the location of the VM to be running>"

$nicname = "<Give your network interface name>"

$pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location $location -AllocationMethod Dynamic

$vnet = Get-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name "FreeStorDemo" -ResourceGroupName FreeStorDemo

$nic = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $nicname -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location $location -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $pip.Id

$cred = Get-Credential

$storageAccName = "<Enter your Azure storage account name>"

$storageAcc = Get-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $rgName -AccountName $storageAccName

$vmName = "<Give a name for your DS Virtual Machine>"

$vmConfig = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $vmName -VMSize "<VM Size>"

$osDiskUri = "<Put in the https path of the vhd disk that you just uploaded>"

$vm = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $vmConfig -Id $nic.Id

$vm = Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -VM $vm -Name $vmName -VhdUri $osDiskUri -CreateOption "Attach" –Windows

New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location "East US" -VM $vm

Example of the above commands:

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $pipName = "dsbootvm2"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $rgName = "MyResourceGroupname"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $vnetName = "MyVMNetworkName"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $location = "eastus"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $nicname = "dsbootvm2-nic"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location $location -AllocationMethod Dynamic

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $vnet = Get-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name "FreeStorDemo" -ResourceGroupName FreeStorDemo

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $nic = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $nicname -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location $location -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $pip.Id

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $cred = Get-Credential

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $storageAccName = "demostorageaccountxxxx"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $storageAcc = Get-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $rgName -AccountName $storageAccName


PS C:\Users\Administrator> $vmName = "dsbootvm2"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $vmConfig = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $vmName -VMSize "Standard_A1"

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $osDiskUri = https:// demostorageac-countxxxx.blob.core.windows.net/fss/RawBootDiskName.vhd

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $vm = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $vmConfig -Id $nic.IdPS C:\Users\Administrator> $vm = Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -VM $vm -Name $vmName -VhdUri $osDiskUri -CreateOption "Attach" –Windows

PS C:\Users\Administrator> New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location "East US" -VM $vm

10. Refresh your Azure browser. You should see a new VM is being created. Azure assigns a

new DHCP IP for the newly created VM. You can use Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol

(RDP) to access it via the new DHCP IP.

If you have data disks used by the applications within this new VM, you can create

TimeViews or a TimeView copy and then assign the virtual device to the new VM via iSCSI

protocol. Refer to the FalconStor Data Mastery Platform User Guide for details on how to cre-

ate TimeViews and TimeView copies, in addition to how to configure an iSCSI client and

assign virtual devices.

BOOT A LINUX DISK IMAGE1. Convert the raw device to a loopback device on the target FSSVA.

# losetup /dev/loop0 linux6u5azure01.raw

2. Use the Linux kpartx utility to read partition tables on the specified device and create

device maps over the partition segments detected.

# kpartx -a /dev/loop0

3. Mount the boot partition to /mnt.

# mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mnt

4. Edit grub.conf and change the default boot image to the one from before DiskSafe was

installed.

# vi /mnt/grub/grub.conf

5. Umount the boot partition.

# umount /mnt

6. Use vgscan to scan for the DiskSafe LVM volume.

# vgscan

7. Activate the volume group that was found, vg_rh6u5 in this example.

# vgchange -ay vg_rh6u5

8. Mount the lv_root volume to /mnt.

# mount /dev/vg_rh6u5/lv_root /mnt

9. Edit fstab and lvm.conf to remove the DiskSafe reference from the two files below. Refer

to KB article 1548 for more information.

# vi /mnt/etc/fstab

# vi /mnt/etc/lvm/lvm.conf

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10. Update the ifcfg-eth0 file to this so that it can obtain the IP via DHCP.

# vi /mnt/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

DEVICE=eth0

ONBOOT=yes

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

TYPE=Ethernet

USERCTL=no

PEERDNS=yes

IPV6INIT=no

11. Make sure networking is enabled.

# vi /mnt/etc/sysconfig/network

NETWORKING=yes

HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain

12. Make sure the resolv.conf file is empty.

# vi /mnt/etc/resolv.conf

13. Remove the Ethernet information from the udev net rule so that it will add a new entry

during the next boot.

# vi /mnt/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Umount the lv_root partition

# umount /mnt

14. Deactivate the volume group, delete the partition mapping, delete the loopback device,

and then run a volume group scan.

# vgchange -an vg_rh6u5

# kpartx -d /dev/loop0

# losetup -d /dev/loop0

# vgscan

Information in this document is provided "As Is" without warranty of any kind, and is subject to change without notice by FalconStor, which assumes no responsibility for any errors or claims herein. Copyright 2018 Falcon-Stor Software. All rights reserved. FalconStor Software, FalconStor and RecoverTrac are trademarks or registered trademarks of FalconStor Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and prod-uct names contained herein are or may be trademarks of the respective holder. PIDCIG01209

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